Monthly Archives: May 2011

Last post, I mentioned how it makes me crazy when you start any kind of marketing training and boom, before anything else, you’re being asked who your audience is and what they want.

What makes me crazy about that is that it just assumes that you know what you’re here to offer and what you have to say. It assumes you’re just going to say “oh, I offer . . . “ — toothpaste, or dry cleaning, or home repair, or weight loss support. Or whatever it is you offer.

But we live in a day and age where many of us are offering things that aren’t so easy to name: personal growth, spiritual transformation, changing perspective, meaning, self-discovery, hope.

And even if you kind of know what you’re offering, or you know the form of what you’re offering (coaching sessions, retreats, hand analysis sessions, info products), you actually may not quite know the essence of what you’re offering.

You may not be able to name what people get to feel and experience at the deepest level through your work and why it matters.

And the truth is, that if you don’t know the essence of what you’re here to offer, it’s actually hard to know who your audience is.

Think about that for a moment.

If you can’t say “this is what I bring to the table” how could you possibly explore who might want it and who would value it enough to pay for it?

And then even if you manage to figure out who your audience is and what they want, you’re either told “ok, great, just tell your audience that that’s what you’re going to give them.”

And if you’re one of my peeps, you stop and you think “well, wait a minute, I just tell people I’ll give them what they want?”

Ok, you should do that, but that’s not ALL you should do.

As my dad the mathematician might say, telling your audience you can solve their problem is NECESSARY but not SUFFICIENT.

Which in plain English means, sure, it’s a good thing to do but by itself, it won’t get you what you want.

If that’s all you know how to say (“over here, I can solve your problem! Really I can! Of course, no one has shown me how to write and speak about how I do that so you believe me. And I sound like the 300 other people who have targeted you and are promising more or less the same thing, but hey, trust me, I really know what I am doing!”), you usually don’t have enough weight or power in your words to be credible or to stand out from the crowd.

Or maybe, the people leading your training say, “ok, now that you’ve told people you can solve their problem, here’s the place where you say what you do.”

Because I know, I know that for most of the people who end up working with me, they’re saying “but that’s what I came to you to figure out! I know what it is but I don’t know how to say it!”

My client Pam who does amazing heart-centered work with expatriates to feel more at home said this recently about her experience going through the training:

To be honest, your course is the first business development course that I’ve taken that I feel has “hit the spot” and is working for me. Most other business communication classes begin at the mid-point of your training, without the groundwork in message development that your program provides. Without a message that is both deeply anchored and articulated, it has been impossible for me to reap the full benefits of other trainings. It is impressive how the process of putting words to something anchors it so firmly and generates more confidence.

You see, most of these trainings come from the perspective that you are in business to make money and that what you do in your business is secondary. A friend of mine said recently that her internet marketing mentor says “If your audience wants hamburgers, give them hamburgers.”

It’s just that selling those in a world where most people say they want hamburgers is SCARY. It’s less certain, it’s less predictable.

So we listen and think, “ok, I’d better sell hamburgers.” And then, we usually don’t do that as well as someone who was truly brought to the planet to sell hamburgers.

You aren’t just here to use your talents and gifts to give people what one hundred others can. You are here to use your talents and gifts to give people what no one else can.

And naming and claiming what that thing is takes some soul searching and some work.

But not that much time in the scheme of things.

How to Use This Today.

Make a list of 3 or 5 times in your life that you were kicking ass and taking names.

Doing amazing work (whether or not you got paid for it), or even just finding a bright spot of joy in an otherwise dismal job. Where you had one conversation with someone that changed their life.

Where you were making some kind of meaningful difference.

Feeling alive and connected and in the flow with what you were doing.

Write a few sentences or a paragraph about each one, digging deep into the layers of what you were really doing and why it mattered.

Look for common threads.

Not generalities like “I was learning,” or “I inspired them,” but getting specific, like, “I helped them see many more options than they’d seen before,” or “I spoke to the part of them that was strong and confident,” or “I helped them synthesize information so they could actually use it.”

Not so much about what you got to experience (“I was recognized,” “I was included,”) but what you helped create for someone else or what you were trying to create for yourself.

Ok, you’re getting close. The shape of what you’re here to do should be starting to emerge.

Marketing training is a beautiful thing. Smart business owners listen and pay attention to what their audience wants.

But your audience can’t give you your voice. Can’t put words to the reason you are here on this planet. Can’t tell you what to say that would touch and move and inspire them.

Only you can do that for yourself.

I work with small groups to name and claim the thing they are here to do that no one else can, and then to help them create marketing bits and pieces that are smart and audience-oriented without losing that essential spark. For more information, visit: http://soundbiteshaman.com/mojo-home.

You can offer a needed service to a hungry audience without knowing the deeper meaning, the bigger themes, the potent ideas behind what you are offering. You can market it, and promote it with good, clean, straightforward copy that lays out the need and the benefit, make your sales, and have your business.

It’s just that most people who come to me don’t want to do business that way.

They are doing the work they’re doing precisely because of its deeper meaning, because of their passion for what happens for other people through their work.

Or, they are chomping at the bit to step out of more conventional work into something more meaningful but they aren’t quite sure how to make the transition.

They aren’t as lit up about racking up sales as they are about changing the world, changing the culture, and freeing people from old, outdated ways of doing things.

They are on fire to birth something new, something original, something meaningful through their business, and for them, same-old, same-old marketing copy isn’t going to cut it.

So, for those folks, yes, knowing their message, being able to speak that message, being able to write that message is pretty important.

Why?

1. When you’re not grounded in your message, it’s too easy to doubt yourself, doubt the value of what you want to offer, and even get confused about what it is that you want to offer.
2. If you’re doubting yourself or are confused about what you offer, it’s really hard to get motivated to do all those uncomfortable reaching-out-and-promoting-yourself activities that are key to making any money, much less an amount of money that would make you happy.
3. If you’re doubting yourself or are confused about what you offer, doing all the writing you need to do (sales pages, web copy, promotional emails, e-zines, blog posts) is torture, not because you don’t know how to write but because you don’t know what you’re trying to say!
4. If you’re vague, fuzzy, generic, or lazy about putting your thoughts and ideas forward, your chance of connecting with your right people, or getting a response to all the stuff you do write drops dramatically.
5. If you’re vague, fuzzy, generic, or lazy about how you express your thoughts and ideas, people tune you out and pass you by because they’ve heard it before or it sounds like everybody else (Think big! Sharpen the saw! Reach for your dreams!)

It’s odd. In the business world, everyone is running around worried about their USP, and writing sizzling web copy, and putting together an elevator speech, and what makes me crazy is that just about no one talks about what you have to do before you can do any of those and have them come out decent.

Figure out what you are here to say.

Not just today. Not just for this product or program. But for good. For life.

What do you stand for? What do you believe in? What themes and threads and ideas have been running through your life experiences? What is going to be true in what you offer, regardless of what program, product, or service you are putting forward?

This is the stuff you have to figure out if you have a chance of writing decent copy or coming up with decent language for your business.

This is the stuff you have to figure out if you stand a chance of actually communicating to relative strangers why what you do is so staggeringly amazing and wonderful.

Once you figure this out, and boil it down from 30 great random ideas into the two or three key themes that tie together, then writing your business communication becomes so much simpler. It just takes a little knowledge about what info goes where, and you start to truly be communicating not just barfing a bunch of words up on a page and hoping they mean something to someone.

How to Move On This Today.

For the rest of today, keep asking yourself “what am I here to say?” and jot some notes down. I don’t care if it’s on a napkin or in a beautiful notebook. Get that stuff out of your head and on to paper.

It’s probably best if you DON’T just sit there in front of a blank piece of paper. That will freak you out and make your brain dry up. Go for a walk, or tidy your desk and let your brain noodle around with it.

A little secret: the coolest thing you have to say is probably something you totally take for granted.

For one person, it’s about taking time and paying attention to money in positive ways, not out of a sense of obligation or burden, but out of seeing the possibility of a more sacred, respectful relationship with money.

For another, it’s about stopping the hidden impulse that had her push money away and turn a blind eye to the opportunities that were right in front of her.

For another, it’s about getting serious about her business, and taking bigger, bolder, more frequent actions to generate income through that business.

For another, it’s stopping the cycle that leads to credit card debt and the shame that goes with it.

I am seeing incredible results with the people I am taking through this process.

Clients like Emma Jarrett, and Shayla Wright (who I first connected with when she wrote a slightly cranky note to tell me I was sending out too many marketing emails), and Deirdre Danahar and Julie Marah.

Raising their rates. Stepping into their marketing mojo, unraveling LIFE-LONG patterns around money, making smart investment decisions, opening savings accounts and starting regular savings, seeing how making more with being able to give more.

Every week, they send me gorgeous emails saying things like:

• Just hours after our call, I taught a class and felt great when people handed me cash with smiles. I think I received so much more gracefully and gratefully.

• I’m going to do the Money Breakthrough work with you. One of the reasons I decided to do it is because after speaking with you I went to my computer and raised all of my coaching fees.

• I realized that if I ask for good money in return for my services and expect that they pay it, then I am sending the message to them that I trust they have the ability to find/earn/spend that money because I know they live in an abundant world too. By my doing that, they are given the gift of seeing that trust and faith that I have in them being provided for.

• As we discussed on our last call, I have had the realization that some of the training I signed up to in recent months has been because, subconsciously, I thought ‘the next course’ was going to provide all the answers and the recipe for my success. I have now realized that, helpful though much of the training is, the answer is not ‘out there’ but ‘in here’ and that it is up to me to go out and create the success I want for myself.

And I’m willing to step up to the plate and go for it (scary though it is!) And I realize I need to put myself out there in a much bigger way than I have thus far.

• Decided to break the long-standing family pattern and belief “if I don’t care for “broken” family members (at my own expense), they will die.”

• I recognize my fear that if I claim and reveal my true power, which would include earning sums which truly reflect my potential, that I might no longer be lovable.

I hear it in their voices. That a-ha moment. When suddenly they see something they hadn’t before.

One client, just getting back to her business after 8 years of focusing on being a mom, had one of those a-has. She said “so, I could map out my classes for the year? So I would know in advance when I was offering them?” She realized that by planning further ahead, she could not only reduce her scrambling, she could market more effectively. And she could plan around the times she wanted to be with her family.

It seems so simple. And yet it’s these kinds of a-has that change everything.

I meet a lot of beautiful, gorgeous souls who have dreams of being in business.

But no business.

These gorgeous souls can speak eloquently of the difference they want to make in the world, of the ways they can help others to experience profound transformation.

But they aren’t helping anyone.

They can tell me how they’d like to spend the money they don’t have: traveling, or getting body work, or learning new things.

But they aren’t engaged in any activity likely to produce that income.

Sometimes they’ll say to me:

Isabel, I just know when I am ready the opportunities to do my work will appear.
I don’t like to plan too much in my business, I want to be open to what happens in the moment.
I am trusting that if I am on the right path, work will come to me.

So, if you know me, you know I am all about the woo-woo.

I love exploring the energetics of how we bring ourselves to the world. I love stories of the miraculous, the unexpected. Of the universe lining up with a passionately held intention. I know deep in my heart that the businesses we create are more than the sum of our actions.

But I also work my ass off.

Magical thinking is when we see the result we want, the clients, the money, the fame, but we disengage from the steps we need to take to get there.

Magical thinking is when we ask the universe for material blessings, without finding in our hearts a willingness to make ready for them.

Magical thinking is when we move in the world like little children, wishing that our every need will be met without offering our own contribution in exchange.

Magical thinking isn’t powerful.

Visioning isn’t of much value without a partner in action.

Sure, magical thinking works some of the time.

But generally, I see no evidence that people with thriving businesses think or dream them into existence without also setting goals, making plans, and taking action.
Rather, they partner with the divine for guidance, for inspiration, for mercy and compassion in their moments of need, while also taking the small, sometimes unglamorous, steps every day to bring their work into being.

They pray for their needs to be met, while also reaching out for the opportunities they see in front of them.

They visualize their rich life in order to build energy to take the risks that will make it come true.

Like every other sneaky money pattern, magical thinking takes you out of the game.

It keeps you from seeing the work that is yours to do. It keeps you from finding the energy and commitment to take uncomfortable steps that grow your soul while they grow your business. It keeps you from being in your full power as a grown adult who is willing to give in order to receive.

Do you disagree? Think I’ve got it all wrong? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

But don’t write and tell me I just don’t understand spiritual principles unless you yourself are living proof that you can have a thriving, profitable business without a fair measure of hard work.

You may have found that no matter how hard you work, you seem to always have more or less the same amount of money.

Or you have more money, but your basic experience of money still feels the same, whether it’s not having quite enough (because your expenses rise to match your income), not knowing where all the money goes, or living in fear no matter how much you have.

It can feel as if you have these invisible brakes on your income, a kind of cruise control that keeps you at more or less the same level despite your passionate desire to bring in more, despite all the training and support you brought on to make more, and that you’re still falling short of having that more expansive, joyful experience of money that you’re looking for.

On one level it’s pretty simple.

We don’t make more money because a part of us (often a very young part of us) is desperately convinced that if we made more money something bad would happen.

And because we are wired as human beings to avoid that pain, and because most of us choose the devil we know over the one we don’t, and because that fear may be lurking in the background where we don’t really look at it clearly:
• we “somehow” don’t see the opportunities to step forward and claim more money or
• we sabotage the opportunities we get, or
• we feel that we just don’t have the energy, or the talent, to step forward and act more boldly on our own behalf.

In other words, you end up choosing the discomfort of living with your current money patterns over the perceived discomfort and consequence of having more money flow into your life.

Part of the Money Breakthrough work I do with clients includes ferreting out the often unconscious belief or fear that’s holding them back. That’s pulling against the increase they want.

Here’s some examples of how that can look: (now, keep in mind with money stuff, that if it’s not your issue, it’s easy to look at someone else’s issue and say “no, big deal” but when it’s your issue and your wiring, it’s a really big deal.)

• One of my clients realized that she was afraid that if she really started earning more money that it would take her away from her family, that she would be a “bad mum,” and that her children would be starved for love.
• Another client realized that she had a subtle thought that if she started being successful with her creative work, that her sister might resent her, might criticize her, and might blame her because she would no longer be available as a “partner is suffering.” So for her, reaching for more money felt like risking her place in her family.
• Another client realized that even though she was separated from her husband, that she was still worrying that her financial success would threaten his self-esteem and even his mental well-being.
• Another client felt that if she broke the mold of what her community said was possible, she risked being cast out.

Here’s what’s strange:

It doesn’t matter if your fear has any basis in reality. If that person or group would in fact reject you or lash out at you, or suffer as a result of your success. As long as you are carrying that fear and concern, it will tend to inhibit your actions.

Want to give this a try?

The question I ask goes something like this:

If you were to make significantly more money than you do now, who is it that you are afraid would be hurt, upset, or disempowered in any way?

Something almost always comes up. The thing is, it usually whispers.

Almost all my clients will say something like, “the *only* thing I can think of is . . . “
Or “This seems so minor, but it might be . . . “
Or “I don’t know that is really true, but a little part of me feels like . . .”

And that seemingly faint concern, when we dig deeper, is often the key to moving them easily and joyfully into more powerful actions around money.

You see, most of my clients are highly creative, highly sensitive, and deeply concerned about the feelings of others.

And that concern, when unconscious, can turn into self-sacrifice. Can turn into holding back from the financial good that is yours to claim because of fear that it might hurt someone else.

How about you? Who are you afraid would be hurt if you made more money?

Recently, I spoke to nearly 30 people in a span of three weeks about their dreams for a Money Breakthrough. And after they told me about the money breakthrough and the money experience they most desired, I asked four questions:

1. Do you know how much money you need to earn to have that experience?
2. Do you currently save money regularly and do you have a savings goal?
3. Do you know how much you need to be charging to generate the income you want?
4. Do you have a plan to generate the income you want?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say, if you can’t answer yes to at least three of those four, then, you’ve got some work to do.

But I also wanted to give you a boost with question #2.

You see, when people feel constricted about money, or powerless to bring in a greater flow of money, they usually don’t save, and if they aren’t saving, they usually don’t have a savings goal.

My client Shayla said that when I first brought up the subject of savings with her, she felt like getting her to understand and take action on saving was would be, in her words, like getting a dog to fly.

I shared this with her, and I share it in my Money Breakthrough class, but it’s so simple, I thought I’d share this with all of you.

There are a few keys to getting started saving in a way that is so painless, you really won’t notice until you notice that you actually have savings.

First, open a savings account, if you don’t have one. No savings account generally equals no savings.

Second, you’re going to want to use the online banking that seems standard for all banks these days. You’re going to set up an automatic transfer from your business checking to your savings.

Here’s the kicker. You’re going to set up a weekly transfer. Why? Because psychologically, you can transfer smaller amounts, which will feel easier, but because it’s weekly, you’ll still build up your savings quickly.

The amount of the transfer should be an amount that you feel as if you won’t really miss.

It could be $5. If that’s too much, make it $2.

So, set up a simple savings plan transferring $5 a week from your checking to your savings. You’ll save $20 to $25 a month.

When that feels effortless, bump up the weekly amount.

See, how hard was that? Now, you’re saving!

Shayla said that a week or so ago, she was in a deserted restaurant with her husband, and she was so excited that she got up and danced around chanting “I have $200 in my savings account! I have $200 in my savings account!” How cool is that!

One of the sneaky money patterns that comes up for so many business owners is over-investing or under-investing in training and coaching and mentoring.

Over-investing is when you say yes to all kinds of offers of training, to the point that a) you’re in debt and not making rapid progress paying it off and b) you have no time to actually grow your business because you are so busy taking classes and doing fieldwork for the classes you are in. (At one point in the last few years, I was spending up to 13 hours a weeks on training, yeesh.)

Over-investing is when you spend on training thinking each time, “this is it, this is the magic bullet that is going to make my business soar,” only to be disappointed to find that it’s still up to you, that no matter how good the information is that you paid for, you still have to do the sometimes scary, sometimes painful work to get your business off the ground.

Over-investing is spending money on training you don’t actually use. Even if you are a good implementer, it’s still over-investing if you are spending more than you can afford, or taking on more training that you can really absorb.

Under-investing is when you feel so constricted financially that you don’t invest in the support you desperately need to reach your goals. When you can’t get the information you need to make sure that the time and money you ARE spending pay off. When you’re just treading water trying not to go under in your business, instead of moving forward in your work.

Being able to make good, smart, balanced decisions about where and how you spend your money is critical to being successful as a business owner. Part of the Money Breakthrough Method work I take people through includes really sussing out what need is driving your buying choices, so you can make the right decisions about training, decisions that you’ll look back on with pride.

Here are questions you can ask yourself about any program and some ways to thinka bout answering them:

1. Are money worries and money patterns an issue in my life right now?

Ok, you know the answer to this one already. If you attended my preview call, it either spoke to you, or it didn’t. If you look at your money life, it’s either working and you feel joy and gratitude and expansion and possibility around money, or you’re feeling fear, worry, and constriction.

It’s not actually about how much money you have or whether you’re good at saving or paying your taxes, it’s whether or not you are creating the money experience you want or not.

In general, don’t sign up for programs that address things that are not hot issues for you right at this moment. Don’t take a training or buy a product for something you might get around to in the future. Save your money for trainings that address where you are right now.

2. Does this approach to resolving money issues resonate with me?

Any problem has many possible solutions. You can look at money purely from the perspective of the Law of Attraction, or energy, or faith. You can look at money from a purely practical perspective of what you need to do and when. For my money program to work for you, you need to like and feel good about the way I look at money.

One of the things I love about the Money Breakthrough Method is that it combines energetic work around deep-seated beliefs and patterns with very practical actions and strategies.

One of the reasons I’ve been posting so much on my blog is so that you can really get a feel for whether you resonate with my approach or not.

3. Do I trust Isabel to deliver on her promises?

I’m going to suggest you already have a gut feeling about this. If you don’t trust me on some level, you’re not going to sign up to work with me. Again, I offered the preview calls and all the blog posts to give you some experience of me and a reason to trust that I will show up, offer good quality information, and provide the insight and support that will make a difference for you.

I will say that I am blessed to have many clients tell me that they choose to work with me precisely because they have such a high level of trust in me. They trust my integrity, my ability to deliver a solid, well-designed program, and they trust me to tell them the truth and not just what they want to hear.

4. Do I trust myself to do the necessary work to get the full value of the experience?

Hah, hah. This is often the trickier one. You may trust me to do what I say I’ll do, but do you trust yourself?

One of the strange things about coaching programs is that the leader actually can’t do the work for you, they can only provide the opportunity for you to step up and have a transformational experience.

So, to feel good about investing, you actually have to trust that you will show up for the calls, do the requested work (in this case meet with your buddy), and on an even deeper level, that you will open yourself fully to the experience and not run and hide when it gets messy or scary. (Because I can promise you that if we are talking about money, it will get messy and scary.)

5. Am I willing and able to make the time to do the work?

I forget this step all the time. To ask myself, not only can I take the time to show up for class, can I block out the time to do the work. And if I do, what goes?

In the best case scenario, you’ll stop doing some time-hogging, energy-wasting, low-impact business actions in order to make time for both shifting your patterns with money and taking higher value, higher risk activities that will move you forward faster.

6. Is this an appropriate level of risk for me to take to sign up for this program?

You see, “Can I afford it?” is really not the right question. The better question is “Is this a financial risk that I am willing and able to take?” Investing in any training carries risk. Risk that it will or won’t be good. Risk that it will or won’t help you achieve the results you want.

The actual cost of this program, any program, doesn’t matter if the possibility of getting the reward is worth the risk of not getting it.

I’ve also done my best to minimize that risk by offering you a guarantee. (It’s not one of those “for any reason” guarantees because I do want to hold your feet to the fire, but it is a generous offer to return your money in full if you can show me you truly engaged for the first two weeks of the program.) You can read all the details on the sales page here.

So, have you made your decision yet? Whatever you decide, I want you to do it from a place of strength and clarity, from a place of knowing that you have the skills to make the choice that is right for you.

Most people don’t feel in control of how money flows in and out of their lives.

You may not feel you can bring in money when you need it. Once you have it, you may feel like it runs out through your fingers like water, or it disappears, poof, in the blink of an eye.

You may feel like things just keep happening to you. Unplanned, unexpected events keep cropping up to take your time, your energy, your money away from you. It may feel like no matter how hard you try, you can’t make or keep the money you want.

You may be so convinced that you are powerless in the face of money, that if I was sitting in front of you, you would argue with me and do everything you could to prove to me that:

It really isn’t your fault.
It’s out of your control.
You really did the best you could.
That forces outside your control brought you to where you are today with money.

And I’d say:

Honey, I understand. I’ve been there. I’ve spent time on my knees gnashing my teeth, and moaning and crying, full of anger and shame, and sick, sick, sick of the hot mess that money was in my life.

I get it.

It can feel so nice and comforting to lift the burden of having to make and manage money off your shoulders. To take what comes without having to rally, and charge, and try to make something happen.

You see, the moment you decide that you are powerless to create what you want with money, your visual field shrinks in tight and you literally can no longer see choices or options.

That’s why this pattern is so darn tricky. It feels so real, it feels so overwhelmingly real (and so tempting) to say it’s out of your hands.

But sooner or later, you’re going to want to get off the floor.

Start simple.

Ask yourself. What’s one thing I can do today to act on my own behalf around money.

Look at my bank balance.
Pay a bill.
Have a hard conversation with someone about the money I owe them.
Think of one person who might want my services.
Deposit that check lost under a pile of papers on my desk.